Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez read the screened questions for team president Paul Beeston, general manager Alex Anthopoulos and manager John Gibbons at the annual state of the union address on Wednesday night at the Rogers Centre.

One season ticket holder asked Beeston if Rogers Communications was committed to spending on the Jays considering the parent company’s other expenditures.

“John ... want to handle this one?” Beeston asked Gibbons.

“I don’t know, Paul, it’s a bad year to ask for a raise,” Gibbons replied to laughter from the roughly 1,000 season ticket holders in attendance.

Beeston did answer the question, saying that Rogers approved bumping team payroll from $90 million US to $125 million last year knowing the further obligations would climb $22 million with increases to Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes and R.A. Dickey alone.

“They can sign an NHL TV deal and invest in TFC, we can’t worry,” Beeston said. “We’ve never asked Rogers about a player once where they said no. The Toronto Blue Jays will rank among the top 10 spenders in team salary this year.”

Mellow Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé music played before and after question period. There was not the jazzed up “where do we line up to buy World Series tickets” excitement of a year ago.